Too much bad analogy makes the baby go blind.
It's like these kids I babysat today. They were sick and sat at home for four hours with me in the basement, and I watched them watch three Disney movies back to back. I went to walk upstairs at one point, and was going to close the kiddy/dog-gate behind me when I saw that one of the little boys had followed me and was trying to escape the basement under my feet. I felt so sorry for him, but he couldn't run free in the house while I was going to the bathroom. He was doomed to be bored with life for the day, with a runny nose, a rotten cough, too young even to make conversation.
That's how I feel. As if I've got the burning sensation to go to the bathroom, and need to run upstairs, out of the basement to free myself, only I'm two with a cold, and doggy-gated in a hole with curiously happy cartoon characters who all seem to have miraculously happy endings to mock your own personal state of insecurity and boredom. Your only option is to wait for that moment when someone inspires you to get up off your wobbly legs and run for the exit, at that ideal moment when the opportunity presents itself. The door is thrown open and you have half a second to make your move. Don't miss it or the babysitter will discover you and lock you away again.
Who's my babysitter? I'm still a child governed by my parents. Today a man called me from a bank with which I didn't even know I had an account, or as he called it "a trust." How was I to know to trust this man? I'm twenty-one now, and apparently, in order to evade some tax somewhere--amid a storm of papers and mail, in files or in transit, or circulating at the nation's capitol--I'm to "pay my own tuition", ie: write a check out in my name to Northwestern, after my father's written a check for me to deposit in my "own" account, trust, god I don't know what it is.
And I think about paying my way to New York after college--what it would cost me to stay there--what it would take to make rent each month. And I think about the dollars and change I've saved up over the years, of which I used to be so proud, and think now it will afford my stay in Italy while I'm there this summer. I hope. I hope I will afford my stay in Italy this summer. I hope I will have something left over. I hope eventually to be able to pay my way back there. I hope I don't starve to death and die in a basement studio beneath a brothel or worse a Jewel-Osco. I hope I never live above a Jewel-Osco with nine cats.
I hope I don't have to sell an organ for a "cause" to pay for heat. But mostly I hope I don't bore myself to death.
It occurred to me the other day that I'm bored because I have no one to feed off of. That sounds creepy. I'm not justifying it. I'm ashamed. I said it was a realization. I'm not proud of it. Yes, in the past, I've learned to love something, a hobby, a job, a sport, a friend, a music genre, after someone has introduced me to it, or modeled it. I won't say I'm a sheep, a copycat. I'm a youngest sibling. It's how I was raised. I saw, I followed. I learned to appreciate things, because I appreciated the people I was with and respected and loved them. And what made me happy, did so because I was with them as I did it. I guess that isn't too shameful a way to think on it, but still, now that I'm forced to be my own person, choose my own path, something that will bear fruit for me no matter where my family divides or how many of my friends slip away to seperate states, other friends. I can't seem to find what makes me happy on my own. Acting isn't exciting on your own. You need a partner. There's nothing I loathe more than a monologue. Painting is an individual sport, but I tire of it before the job is done, always, without fail. My inspiration buys the materials, stretches the canvas, lays the paint, dips the brush, but my energy dissipates when I see my hand destroy my vision.
My writing grows worse. My peers fascinate me with their own creativity. I wish I had thought of their novellas. And then I turn to work on my own. I handed in six less pages than I should have for my final grade at the end of this quarter.
I need to be proud of myself again. I can't wait any longer. I feel sick, I feel tired and fussy, like my bladder would burst with life, and that life, that anxious swell would disperse before I could catch it. It would wet itself, escape, spill, into the sheets that cover me from facing the world, that hide me in the night. I'm tired of being the child. But I can't get past that child-proof doggy-door.
Enough sappy analogy for you? Yeah, me too.
I really wish I could get high tonight.
Why don't I have a hash connection?
Oh yes, I'm uptight.
That's how I feel. As if I've got the burning sensation to go to the bathroom, and need to run upstairs, out of the basement to free myself, only I'm two with a cold, and doggy-gated in a hole with curiously happy cartoon characters who all seem to have miraculously happy endings to mock your own personal state of insecurity and boredom. Your only option is to wait for that moment when someone inspires you to get up off your wobbly legs and run for the exit, at that ideal moment when the opportunity presents itself. The door is thrown open and you have half a second to make your move. Don't miss it or the babysitter will discover you and lock you away again.
Who's my babysitter? I'm still a child governed by my parents. Today a man called me from a bank with which I didn't even know I had an account, or as he called it "a trust." How was I to know to trust this man? I'm twenty-one now, and apparently, in order to evade some tax somewhere--amid a storm of papers and mail, in files or in transit, or circulating at the nation's capitol--I'm to "pay my own tuition", ie: write a check out in my name to Northwestern, after my father's written a check for me to deposit in my "own" account, trust, god I don't know what it is.
And I think about paying my way to New York after college--what it would cost me to stay there--what it would take to make rent each month. And I think about the dollars and change I've saved up over the years, of which I used to be so proud, and think now it will afford my stay in Italy while I'm there this summer. I hope. I hope I will afford my stay in Italy this summer. I hope I will have something left over. I hope eventually to be able to pay my way back there. I hope I don't starve to death and die in a basement studio beneath a brothel or worse a Jewel-Osco. I hope I never live above a Jewel-Osco with nine cats.
I hope I don't have to sell an organ for a "cause" to pay for heat. But mostly I hope I don't bore myself to death.
It occurred to me the other day that I'm bored because I have no one to feed off of. That sounds creepy. I'm not justifying it. I'm ashamed. I said it was a realization. I'm not proud of it. Yes, in the past, I've learned to love something, a hobby, a job, a sport, a friend, a music genre, after someone has introduced me to it, or modeled it. I won't say I'm a sheep, a copycat. I'm a youngest sibling. It's how I was raised. I saw, I followed. I learned to appreciate things, because I appreciated the people I was with and respected and loved them. And what made me happy, did so because I was with them as I did it. I guess that isn't too shameful a way to think on it, but still, now that I'm forced to be my own person, choose my own path, something that will bear fruit for me no matter where my family divides or how many of my friends slip away to seperate states, other friends. I can't seem to find what makes me happy on my own. Acting isn't exciting on your own. You need a partner. There's nothing I loathe more than a monologue. Painting is an individual sport, but I tire of it before the job is done, always, without fail. My inspiration buys the materials, stretches the canvas, lays the paint, dips the brush, but my energy dissipates when I see my hand destroy my vision.
My writing grows worse. My peers fascinate me with their own creativity. I wish I had thought of their novellas. And then I turn to work on my own. I handed in six less pages than I should have for my final grade at the end of this quarter.
I need to be proud of myself again. I can't wait any longer. I feel sick, I feel tired and fussy, like my bladder would burst with life, and that life, that anxious swell would disperse before I could catch it. It would wet itself, escape, spill, into the sheets that cover me from facing the world, that hide me in the night. I'm tired of being the child. But I can't get past that child-proof doggy-door.
Enough sappy analogy for you? Yeah, me too.
I really wish I could get high tonight.
Why don't I have a hash connection?
Oh yes, I'm uptight.